"They say it was a shocking sight After the field was won ;

For many thousand bodies here

Lay rotting in the sun;

But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

"Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won,

And our good Prince Eugene-" "Why, 'twas a very wicked thing!" Said little Wilhelmine.

"Nay-nay-my little girl," quoth he, "It was a famous victory.

"And every body praised the Duke, Who this great fight did win."

"But what good came of it at last?" Quoth little Peterkin.

66

'Why, that I cannot tell," said he, "But 'twas a famous victory."

THE BUTTERFLY AND THE SNAIL.

ALL upstarts, insolent in place,
Remind us of their vulgar race.
As in the sunshine of the morn,
A butterfly (but newly born,)
Sat proudly perking on a rose,
With pert conceit his bosom glows;
His wings (all-glorious to behold,)
Bedropt with azure, jet, and gold,
Wide he displays; the spangled dew
Reflects his eyes, and various hue.

His now-forgotten friend, a snail,
Beneath his house, with slimy trail,
Crawls o'er the grass; whom, when he spies,
In wrath he to the gardener cries:

"What means yon peasant's daily toil, "From choaking weeds to rid the soil? Why wake you to the morning's care? Why with new arts correct the year?

66

66

66

Why glows the peach with crimson hue? "And why the plum's inviting blue? "Were they to feast his taste designed, "That vermin of voracious kind! "Crush then the slow, the pilfering race; "So purge thy garden from disgrace." "What arrogance!" the snail replied; "How insolent is upstart pride! "Hadst thou not thus, with insult vain, "Provoked my patience to complain, "I had concealed thy meaner birth, "Nor traced thee to the scum of earth. "For scarce nine suns have waked the hours, "To swell the fruit, and paint the flowers, "Since I thy humbler life surveyed, "In base, in sordid guise arrayed; "A hideous insect, vile, unclean, "You dragged a slow and noisome train; "And from your spider-bowels drew "Foul film, and spun the dirty clue. "I own my humble life, good friend;

"Snail was I born, and snail shall end.
"And what's a butterfly? At best,
"He's but a caterpillar drest;

"And all thy race (a numerous seed,)
"Shall prove of caterpillar breed."

ROBIN AND ANNA.

SHE listens ;

"Tis the wind," she cries:

The moon, that rose so full and bright, Is now o'ercast: she weeps, she sighs,She fears 'twill be a stormy night.

Not long was Anna wed.

Her mate,

A fisherman, was out at sea:

The night is dark, the hour is late,
The wind is high-and where is he?

"Oh! who would love! oh! who would wed "A wandering fisherman, to be "A wretched, lonely wife, and dread

"Each breath that blows, when he's at sea!"

Not long was Anna wed. One pledge
Of tender love her bosom bore:
The storm comes down! the billows rage!
Its father is not yet on shore !

"Oh! who would think her portion blessed
"A wandering seaman's wife to be,
"To hug the infant to her breast,

"Whose father's on a stormy sea!"

The thunder bursts! the lightning falls!
The casement rattles with the rain!
And, as the gusty tempest bawls,

The little cottage quakes again!—

She does not weep; she does not sigh;
But gazes on her infant dear-
A smile lights up the cherub's eye,
That dims its mother's with a tear!

"Oh! who would be a seaman's wife!
"Oh! who would bear a seaman's child!
"To tremble for her husband's life!.
"To weep-because her infant smiled!"

Hadst thou ne'er borne a seaman's boy-
Nor had thy husband left the shore
Thou ne'er hadst felt such frantic joy,
To see-thy Robin at the door!-

To press his weather-beaten cheek,
To kiss it dry and warm again,
To weep the joy thou couldst not speak-
So pleasure's in the debt of pain.

Thy cheerful fire, thy plain repast,
Thy little couch of love, I ween,

Were ten times sweeter than the last-
And not a cloud that night was seen!
O happy pair! the pains you know
Still hand in hand with pleasure come;
For often does the tempest blow,

And Robin still is safe at home!

THE GLADIATOR.

I SEE before me the Gladiator lie :

He leans upon his hand-his manly brow
Consents to death, but conquers agony,
And his drooped head sinks gradually low-
And through his side the last drops, ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him—he is gone,

Ere ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch

who won.

He heard it, but he heeded not-his eyes
Were with his heart, and that was far away;
He recked not of the life he lost nor prize,
But where his rude hut by the Danube lay,-
There were his young barbarians all at play;
There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire,
Butchered to make a Roman holiday-

All this rushed with his blood-Shall he expire
And unavenged?--Arise! ye Goths, and glut your ire!

ST. PHILIP NERI AND THE YOUTH.

ST. Philip Neri, as old readings say,

Met a young stranger in Rome's streets one day;
And, being ever courteously inclined

To give young folks a sober turn of mind,
He fell into discourse with him; and thus
The dialogue they held comes down to us.

St. "Tell me, what brings you, gentle youth, to "Rome?"

Y. "To make myself a scholar, sir, I come."

St. "And, when you are one, what do you intend ?"
Y. "To be a priest, I hope, sir, in the end."
St. "Suppose it so-what have you next in view?"
Y. "That I may get to be a canon too."

St. "Well; and how then?"

Why, cardinal's a high degree

"And yet my lot it possibly may be." St. "Suppose it was-what then?"

Y.

Why, who can say, "But I've a chance of being pope one day?" St. "Well, having worn the mitre, and red hat, "And triple crown, what follows after that?"

Y. "Nay, there is nothing further to be sure, "Upon this earth, that wishing can procure: "When I've enjoyed a dignity so high,

"As long as God shall please, then, I must die."

St. "What! must you die? fond youth! and at the

best

"But wish and hope, and may be all the rest!

F